India’s 2016 fruit and vegetable export volumes recovered their five-year-average levels after a low supply year in 2015, latest figures show.
Fresh Intelligence Consulting data, based on 12 months to October 2016, reveal a 38 per cent rise in total Indian fresh vegetable exports, and a 26 per cent jump in fresh fruit shipments in 2016 over the prior year period.
Yet the 2016 volumes represent more of a return to normal than a dramatic surge in export trade, with the country’s 2.2m-tonne vegetable exports registering a 3 per cent increase over the 2012-2016 annual average, and fresh fruit up 2 per cent to 616,498 tonnes on the five-year trend.
“With regard to India, yes there is a strong [export] increase year-on-year, however when in context over five years, 2015 was a low year and the 2016 results aligned more to the five-year trend,” Fresh Intelligence Consulting principal analyst Wayne Prowse told Fruitnet.
Garlic (up 166 per cent on 2015), and onions (up 57 per cent on 2015) recorded the highest year-on-year export growth in the vegetable sector, but volumes were down 6 per cent and up 2 per cent respectively on the five-year average.
In the fruit category, 2016 grape exports were up 87 per cent compared to 2015, but only 5 per cent above the five-year trend.
“Yes grapes are stronger, but the 87 per cent growth represents a recovery from a 45 per cent decline in 2015,” said Prowse, adding that India is making steady share growth into Europe.
However, bananas, melons and, strikingly, mandarins registered significant export growth above the one-year and five-year averages, suggesting diversification is taking place within India’s fresh produce export sector.
Banana exports were up 41 per cent and 21 per cent respectively to 114,216 tonnes; melons, 75 per cent and 32 per cent, with 6,505 tonnes; and finally mandarins, up 114 per cent and 147 per cent, to 2,524 tonnes.
This last figure reflects Indian produce industry views that kinnow mandarins will be “the next big thing” to come out of India.
Mumbai-based exporter Deccan Produce trialed a shipment of Indian kinnows to Russia last year, and is in close contact with government-funded organisation Punjab Agri Export Corp which is taking up the Indian kinnow mandarin export cause.
'Kinnows are potentially a big new development from India,' Deccan’s Nagesh Shetty told Fruitnet. 'There is the potential to export 4-5,000 containers a year within the next five years.'
India has traditionally always grown kinnow mandarins for the domestic market, but up to now has never sought to export the fruit – leaving that trade to neighbouring Pakistan, Shetty explained.
But last year Deccan received enquiries from Russian importers about the possibility to receive some Indian mandarins when Pakistan volumes were particularly low.
New plantings of seedless kinnow varieties have already begun in India, and export standard processing facilities are in place, he said.
'In future, India will export more offer, not just grapes, mangoes and pomegranates,' said Shetty. 'It is an interesting time to be in the Indian fruit sector. I think India will become a produce export powerhouse in the near future, with backing from the government, which recently has begun to invest in and really push Indian horticultural exports.”
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